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And that's exactly what's happening in the mobile phone marketplace right now.

The local wires are filled with news that the Commerce Commission is preparing to regulate some of the fees charged by Telecom and Vodafone in an attempt to bring NZ's prices into line with the rest of the developed world.

Compare this to the situation regarding DSL broadband and you've got to wonder what they're smoking over there at the CC.

Telecom is allowed a free hand to trample all over its would-be competitors in the DSL marketplace yet, in an area where they face very real competition, we have the CC coming in with an iron fist.

Yes, NZ's mobile phone rates are way higher than those in the UK or USA but, the telcos would argue, that's because it costs a lot more infrastructure per customer to provide service here than it does in countries with high population densities.

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This may be true for mobile to mobile calling where our $0.49 per minute rate might be justifiable -- but what about when you're calling a mobile from a landline?

These calls are usually billed at around $0.70 per minute, which is outrageous!

If I can make a land-line to land-line toll-call for just a few cents per minute, why am I being charged a 20c per minute premium for a landline to mobile call -- even if that mobile is just a few hundred metres away?

Perhaps the CC is onto something here, it sure looks as if someone is using their monopoly to extort money from a captive market.

According to this NZ Herald story, both Vodafone and Telecom charge a 28 cent termination fee for calls that use their network -- but that doesn't address the issue of why it's usually more expensive to make a landline to mobile call than a mobile to landline one.

Perhaps the difference is that when I place a landline to mobile call I'm forced to use Telecom's copper and Telecom does the billing.

Yes, if you subscribe to one of Telecom's new home-phone plans and pay more up front you *can* get cheaper calls to mobiles -- but why are calls from a regular account be so damned expensive?

Good on the CC for acting in this case -- but can the person who was bold enough to suggest regulating the mobile market please be give the task of examining the DSL broadband situation so we can get some action there?

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